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29 March 2012

"Our world is full of abortion survivors, whether the procedure was attempted on them or not;thanks to OCTOBER BABY, we can begin to understand and minister to this massive wound among our youth. OCTOBER BABY is a major blessing to our movement!"Father Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

A fellow blogger (thanks M!) recently drew my
attention to this quote and I have had it on my mind so much the past few days
I am blogging about it.

My issue is not (yet) about the
movie which I have not seen and therefore cannot judge, although I am concerned
about the content given the reviews I have read.

My issue is about how this movie is
being used and of course with the statements by persons like this Father Frank
Pavone. The emphasis used in the first
part of the quote, I added because this is what upsets me the most.

My question is how can this world be
full of abortion survivors if termination WAS NEVER thought of, let alone
attempted? Answer is simple, if there was no thought of abortion, then that
child was never at risk and therefore not an abortion survivor.

Given the movie is about an adopted
adult who is seeking for her identity and the truth of her origins, I can only
guess the “abortion survivors” Father Frank is referring to is adopted
persons. Had he left the quote at “our
world is full of abortion survivors” I don’t think I could argue that because I
do not know what the statistics are however given the context of the movie and the
rest of that quote, it leads me to think he is referring to adopted persons
because it is assumed out there in general society that we natural mothers “chose
life” and gave our babies away for adoption so we didn’t have to terminate
them.

This is a HUGE misconception. MASSIVE.
For myself, abortion was not even remote thought. I rejected it as quickly as I rejected
adoption (actually, as abortion was the first option offered to me, I rejected
it swiftly followed by adoption).

There was never a question in my
mind about what I felt was best for this child I was carrying. Amongst the fear I felt about being pregnant
and knowing the judgements that would come, I was also excited about being a
mother. I had dreamed about this since I
was 4 years old although getting raped and falling pregnant unmarried had never
quite featured in that dream, funnily enough.
So there was no way I was entertaining any thoughts about termination or
abandonment for this baby.

I asked some other natural mother
friends of mine on facebook if they had considered abortion… and the resounding
answer was no. And I would bet there are
many, many adopted persons with mothers who also felt the same way. The mothers I asked wanted to keep their
children – adoption never featured on their radar either.

Promoting adoption as a savior for
children who might have been or might not have been terminated pregnancies is,
very, very dangerous. Adoption has
nothing to do with a woman’s choice to end a pregnancy. It really doesn’t. Abortion refers to ending a pregnancy and the
decision not to proceed with being pregnant.
Adoption is the decision not to proceed with parenting the child for
whatever reason. Yet time and time again,
the pro lifers/anti-choice persons pit these two together and use guilt to
force someone to do something they might not otherwise have done.

These same parties also like to
bandy around another term (in league with adoption agencies) and that is “coerced
parenting”. COERCED PARENTING!!! First time I read this, I was in disbelief. Because now they are turning something
natural into something to be wary of.
They are making our natural instincts, that is, to birth and parent our
own children, into something ghastly.
And that is mind-boggling and disturbing.

Many pro-lifers are also adoption
agencies in disguise. Their aim is to
prevent abortions in the hope of getting those mothers to place. It is a well greased scam. The thing is, these pro lifers, despite their
propaganda, do not care about mother or baby.
They only care about the bottom dollar.
Given adoption is a mutli billion dollar industry, it is only wise to
see the connection between these two issues in the terms of money. Thanks to Facebook, I have seen pages and
groups rise and fall that have been operating under cover as “support groups”
for young pregnant mothers and they talk about “choosing life”. They then suggest adoption… it is all part of
the same wheel that turns to create more profit, more customers. Those that are caught in the tangled webs
they weave are the losers – the mothers, the babies and in some cases the more naive
PAP’s.

Earlier in the post I raised the
point our children were wanted and we planned to keep our babies. How do mothers end up going from adamantly wanting
their baby to placing them? Although I
have previously linked this post, Coercion not choice, it is the answer to this question and anyone
considering adoption (ie adopting) should read it so you do not become part of
this cruel and barbaric practise which is tearing families apart.

In relation to the abortion survivor
issue, please do not assume our children were ever saved from abortion because
they were not. Our children are not
abortion survivors. They are our much
loved, much wanted children and they were taken by a system who didn’t care for
us and who failed us and our children as a whole. Adoption is not the alternative to
abortion. It is a painful road with no
end in sight. Adoption is a permanent
state whereas the issue of becoming pregnant early is not permanent, not really. It is daunting, sure. But adoption is forever and that means the
pain it causes.

Although not a personal fan of
abortion, I would never ever judge a woman for choosing that route and I have
even suggested it to women as a choice which is something I would never have
done prior to losing my daughter. You know what changed that for me? Adoption.
So to all you pro lifers out there who are promoting the lifelong pain
of adoption: you are also creating more fans of abortion because there is
nothing in this life that could ever make up for the pain of losing a child to
adoption. Nothing.

12 March 2012

I have tried to type this post several times over the past
couple of weeks since the report from the Inquiry into past adoption practises
was handed down. Following the media
content, there have been many comments regarding this issue. And, to my horror, there have been many who
feel it is an okay practise to take a mother’s child based on her age or marital
status and some have even said they wish it was still happening.

Deep down, I understand this comes from ignorance and a
choice to stick their head in the sand.
However it is alarming and hurtful to know the attitudes that caused
almost complete destruction to so many lives, is still around. But I also then questioned what people think
about when they hear about apologies and holding governments ‘responsible’.

As humans, we all crave, at some point, acknowledgement for
wrongs and injustices. It is in our
nature. We want those who have
perpetuated whatever wrongdoing to somehow accept their part and say
sorry. It is in this we are able to find
what we need to move on in whatever way that is for each one of us. When we are denied and invalidated by them
and anyone else, the power of that injustice will hold something over us –
whether large or small is to do with the individual.

Forced adoption is basically a form of kidnap. When a mother is subjected to any sort of
bullying, coercion or threats which have the effect of separating her from her
child against her will, it is more or less the same as if someone walked in and
took her child.

For those out there who like to judge a woman who is
pregnant without a band on her finger or appears young, there are a few things
you should know.

First, and most
importantly, it really is none of your business what is going on in her
life. Her body, her decisions are hers
and hers alone. You do not have the
right to judge her, it really is that simple.

Secondly, no mother deserves to have her child taken from
her just because she is young, unmarried or both. No one can predict how a person will
parent. Being a good mother is not
reliant on how old you are, where you come from, how much money you have in the
bank, what car you drive, where you went to school, who you married, who you
know, the college/university you went to, what house you own etc. There is plenty of abuse in homes with
parents who look good on paper. And a
gold band does not a good mother make.
Abuse has also occurred in adoptive homes. Being adopted incidentally, does not
guarantee a person a better life. It
just offers a different life. I read
stories where adopted adults talk about being grateful for being adopted
because they find their natural families and don’t like them for whatever
reason… how do they know though what their experience would have been? Because of adoption, they missed out on what
that was. This is not meaning adopted
persons shouldn’t love their adoptive families –just pointing out no one can
ever know what their life might have been and therefore cannot dismiss it as
being any good because in order to do that, they would have first had to live
that life.

Thirdly, just because a mother may need to be on welfare for
a certain period does not mean she will be there forever. And regardless, again it is not your
business. There have been plenty of teen
mothers who have made use of the welfare system and used that time to study,
gain qualifications to start a career. I should also mention there are plenty
of mothers out there who are on welfare because their marriages have broken up
and they have had no choice. Because men
do walk out on their families and marriages break up.

Finally, who died and made you judge, jury and
executioner? Women do not become
pregnant on their own. It takes two and
sometimes, a woman becomes pregnant through rape or incest. Where is the heat on those males who have
played a part? And where is the justice
for those fathers who actually wanted to parent and were denied by the same
government policies?

Forced adoption is wrong.
And in many cases it was/is illegal.

So why do those who were/are victims of forced adoption want
the government to apologise? It really isn’t rocket science. Anyone with a conscience and a heart could
figure it out in under a second.
Acknowledgement. Acceptance. To tell the world these women didn’t abandon
their babies like many think and state – that they never “gave them up” as the
saying so wrongly goes.

Why the government?
Because despite many who like to blame “the mores of the time”, parents,
society etc, there was only one department who could sign off on the adoptions and
that was the government in the form of social workers. Not to mention the state run hospitals who
were party to this. They knew it was
wrong. Forcing separation of mother and
baby has always been known as wrong.
Just because something was practised on a large scale does not mean it
was “just the times”. Wrong is always
wrong.

Obviously I am aware this will not cover many criticisms
people have of what mothers like me are asking for. And there will be those who choose to ignore
the truth because it doesn’t suit them or, they don’t want to believe it. That’s okay though because we know what
happened to us. And we know it was
wrong. Those people choosing to ignore it or shut us down are telling us more
about them and what they are like as a human being.

We live in a world where people are cruel and so women like
me suffered. They were not just “trying
to do what was best”. They were
systematically destroying young women and treating them shamefully and
outright, cruelly. They were punishing
us and telling us we needed to suffer. There
is no excuse for what was done then or since.

About Me

My name is Myst and I am the mother of three children, one whom I lost to forced adoption in New Zealand in 1998. I use this blog to share my story so others may be better informed of adoption practises in New Zealand and not lose their child in the same way I did.

Some quotes I love...

"This story had its beginnings in a wrongful belief that women could be separated from their babies and it would all be for the best. Instead, these churches and charities, families, medical staff and bureaucrats struck at the most primal and sacred bond there is - the bond between a mother and her baby"

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart, you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things time cannot mend, some hurts that go to deep... that have taken hold."- Frodo, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologise for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you are right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”-Gandhi

“Man has the capacity to pass on from generation to generation the wrongs that he has suffered whether they are overt or covert wrongs. And there is a whole generation of people who have suffered from the inhumanity of our social service system because they were poor, because they were helpless, because they were young, because they had no advocates, because they were treated unjustly, because they were treated as though they had wronged people by having a child. We now have to call those social service systems to task.”- Family Involvement ‘Editorial’ John L. Brown No 5 (1977):1

"Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenue each year..."- Commission on Human Rights, resolution 2002/92; E/CN/2002/79; page 25

"Hope is like a bird that senses dawn and carefully starts to sing while it is still dark."- Author unknown

“When a baby is born, a mother is born”-Adapted from a quote by Alice Meynell

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."-Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A mother’s love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother still loves on.”-Washington Irving

“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”-Amnesty International

“There is in this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong deathless love save that within a mother’s heart.”-Felicia D. Hemans

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."-Dale Carnegie

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”Psalm 139:13, 14

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. “-Anne Lamott

“No language can express the power and beauty and heroism and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of quenchless fidelity like a star in heaven.”-E.H. Chapin